Only Hollywood Science actually has people die from the lack of oxygen when in an airtight space. In shows where the science is harder, the protagonists are threatened by carbon dioxide poisoning instead.note Unless (for a spacecraft or submarine) the carbon dioxide scrubbers are still working, and have more reserve capacity remaining than the oxygen supply... Of course, from the characters' perspectives, this generally doesn't make any difference.

Examples:

Used rather tragically in the climax. Cheerful Idealist Ai Tanabe is trying to make it to shelter across the lunar desert while carrying an injured companion who is also now a terrorist and criminal. Ai refuses to leave her behind, even though the extra weight is slowing her down and burning her oxygen faster. She doesn't make it to shelter before her air runs out, and is faced with the choice of taking the other person's oxygen tank so that she will survive, or letting them both die. She chooses not to take the oxygen; in the next clip we see her falling on the ground screaming and clawing at her throat while the terrorist sends up a flare gun to signal for help (ensuring her own capture and imprisonment.) Ai is later seen to have survived, but is permanently damaged.

This scene plays differently in the manga — unlike the anime that loves to overplay the emotional side of things and add melodramatic episodes, it's much more casual and matter-of-factly. First, it weren't Tanabe and Claire (who is an anime-only character), it were Hachimaki and his co-trainee for the Jupiter mission, Leonov, and there wasn't any animosity involved; and second, long before they run up of their oxygen they are saved by Tanabe and Yuri.

Katekyō Hitman Reborn!: Tsuna was nearly killed due to lack of oxygen trapped in Hibari's Hedgehog's Needle Sphere Form as his Trial (The Vongola Trial demands the successor to be put under genuine life-threatening situation. Oh, not too mention being mind-raped). He passed, of course.

On Speed Racer, button "F" on the Mach 5's steering wheel engages the car's "submarine" mode. The air tank on board the car only has enough oxygen for half an hour, though. At the end of one 2-parter, Speed and Trixie are trapped in the Mach 5 underwater when its oxygen tank is nearly empty. They're seen gasping for air and everything.

One Piece: Caesar Clown, being a Logia user with the power to manipulate all types of gasses has the power to invoke this, in fact he does this quite often.

One dark Pokémon Japanese radio drama has Jessie and James as the only survivors of a spaceship crash. In a romantically tinged moment, Jessie and James talk about their relationship while Jessie runs out of oxygen.

Comic Books

Human Torch #38: Professor Marko's Hydromatic Vacuum attempts to suck out all the air in the world, and is almost successful as people throughout the world gasp for air.

One issue of Judge Dredd that took place on a moon colony (where oxygen was apparently a utility you had to pay for), the criminals escaped the Judges, only to learn that they were behind on their oxygen bill, resulting in the atmosphere of their hideout being vented. They all suffocated trying to escape.

There's a variation in ElfQuest: Siege at Blue Mountain when Skywise gets magically trapped in a small air pocket inside solid rock, and doesn't know why it's getting hard to breathe. Fortunately Cutter is aware of his plight and working to get him out.

Too Much Coffee Man: TMCM's visit to the moon and the International Space Station has him gasping for air.

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Films — Animated

In Battle for Terra, Jim runs out of Oxygen on his spacesuit, and the other protagonists have to synthesize it for him. Later in the movie, Jim has to choose between pumping Oxygen into a room to save his brother, or to pump the native air into a room to save the female protagonist. He takes a third option. Another example in the movie is when the terraformer activates, and it is stated that Terra will run out of Native Air, killing all native species, unless it is destroyed; however, the humans are running out of oxygen. The situation is resolved with Jim's heroic sacrifice, and a compromise between species.

Capture the Flag: Frank's space suit is running dangerously low on oxygen after he, Mike and Amy escape from Carson's moon base, hench why he is forced to go back to the moon lander and replace his oxygen tank, leaving Mike and Amy to take on Carson themselves. He barely makes it in time.

Films — Live-Action

The Abyss. Everyone gets to breathe a sigh of relief after The bomb is disarmed, but then suddenly, an oxygen check is asked for and the guy only has 5 minutes of oxygen left, and it took much longer than that to get down there...

In Red Planet, Earth itself has run out of oxygen, so the main characters have to send oxygen producing algae to mars to create livable air. The main characters start to run out of oxygen in their habitation module, when one of the characters removes his helmet to find that Mars somehow has breathable air.

12th Man: One man, two hours of oxygen, one escape pod, and 11 Ax-Crazy psychopaths who want it as much as he does.

In Apollo 13, a central plot point is having them MacGyvering carbon dioxide filters from their command module into the ventilation system of the LEM. The filters and the ventilation system socket are different shapes note because the command module and LEM were built by different private contractors. So the crew and Mission Control have to figure out how to (literally) fit a square peg in a round hole. All the more impressive because it's Based on a True Story and totally accurate.

Oxygen was also a critical problem in the opening minutes of the crisis, but not for the traditional reason. The dwindling liquid-oxygen supplies were also used to run the fuel cells that provided power (and drinking water) for the command/service module. They had plenty of breathing oxygen in the lunar module's tanks - but if they ran out of power before they could get the LM up and running...

Averted in Event Horizon where it's not the lack of air that threatens the crew but the rising CO2 levels due to running out of usable air filters. Well, that and the ship being alive and trying to kill them.

In Space Camp, a shuttle full of teenagers accidentally gets launched during an engine test without enough oxygen for an actual mission.

In Galaxy Quest the Big Bad orders to suck the air out of the ship's residential area. The crew manages to reverse the effect just in time before everybody dies.

This initial crisis in Gravity — the space shuttle is destroyed by a cloud of orbiting debris. The only astronaut with a Jet Pack has to retrieve his companion who's been thrown into space, look for survivors, then tow them to the International Space Station before the oxygen in their suit packs run out.

Averted in Das Boot when the submarine is stuck underwater, but the crew has to be very careful to wear their breathing masks and monitor CO2 levels.

Tuck in Innerspace has a very limited supply of oxygen in his minisub, so Jack must get him (and the chips) back to the lab before it runs out.

Spaceballs: Planet Spaceball attempts draining the air from Planet Druidia's atmosphere with the Mega Maid, and people are seen gasping even inside buildings.

Happens to Cooper in Interstellar. Dr Mann cracked his helmet and took the emergency supplies. And again, when he exits out of the black hole.

Humanity is suffering from this due to the Blight reducing the level of oxygen in the air to the point everyone is slowly suffocating.

In the 1959 version of The Bat, Cora almost suffocates when the door of the secret room close, trapping her inside, and she cannot find the switch to open it.

Literature

The second Artemis Fowl book is loaded down with action tropes, and accordingly applies this one while the imperiled character is surrounded by fiery plasma. However, it also mentions that it's rising carbon dioxide levels that's the danger.

Under the Dome by Stephen King provides an Earth based example: A giant fire is consuming the entire town and, due to the fact that there is very little oxygen intake into the dome, it becomes very hard to breathe.

The Space Trilogy: In the first book, Ransom, Weston, and Devine have only ninety days to get home with a limited supply of oxygen. They only barely make it.

In 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the Nautilus is trapped under the Antarctic ice. Oxygen is not a problem, due to the Nautilus having plenty of electricity and water around, but without caustic potash to bind the CO2 the heroes are screwed anyway.

In the first Starbridge novel, the three main characters are on a small spaceship when most of the oxygen-generating plants up and die. As they are too far out now to either reach their destination or turn back, their only hope is to search for an oxygen-bearing planet to harvest some plants for oxygen production before it's too late.

One of the characters, who is a medical doctor, gives a much more accurate than usual description of what they can expect when the oxygen gets too low.

Magic isn't supposed to be able to save you from vacuum if you're Thrown Out the Airlock, but Damien from Starship's Mage is no ordinary mage. When he and Grace are cast into deep space by an explosion, he manages to create an impermeable shield to hold their oxygen, while Grace (also a mage) cycles carbon dioxide into oxygen.

While exploring tunnels in an asteroid in Galaxy of Fear: Spore, our heroes get locked in and, according to their spacesuits, with only twenty minutes of breathable air remaining.

In "The Tenth World", Penton and Blake visit a planet that is too cold to have gaseous oxygen. They're trapped away from their spaceship by alien monsters, and find that they're using up oxygen faster than expected because of the planet's high gravity. (The same story also has Blake getting drunk on too much oxygen after his valve malfunctions.)

In Doom, Fly and Arlene are trapped on Deimos, orbiting Earth, with a leak in the pressure dome. Oxygen is bleeding out but the facility is so large that it takes over a month before the air is dangerously low.

Warlocks of the Sigil: Quinn during his swimming lesson, Kole can't help because of her leg he manages to summon an air bubble

Live-Action TV

In one episode of Farscape, Dargo (who can survive in the vacuum of space for 15 minutes) and Crichton (who is in a damaged suit) are stranded when Crais jumped away with Talyn.

The Ark not having enough oxygen to sustain the life of their population is the entire reason that The 100 are sent to the ground.

In Season 2, people from Mount Weather can't survive on the radiation-soaked Ground without wearing a Hazmat suit. On several occasions, they run into trouble when their suits' oxygen tanks start running out before they can get back to safety.

The cliffhanger of an episode of Batman had this. Batman and Robin were tied up in a room while the Penguin had his mooks removing all the air from the room with a "giant reversing bellows".

Doctor Who: In "Smith and Jones", a hospital is teleported onto the Moon — thankfully the air's kept in a bubble around the building. Of course, that doesn't mean the oxygen won't start to run out . . .

The Dukes of Hazzard: A non-science fiction example, the Season 4 episode "Dukescam Scam" is a Locked In A Vault episode where Uncle Jesse and series antagonist Boss Hogg accidentally become trapped in an airtight vault and a race against time ensues for series heroes Bo and Luke to find the only man who knows the combination to the vault. Viewers are constantly reminded how much time before the one hour's worth of air runs out.

In the pilot episode of Odyssey 5 a shuttle crew in orbit is faced with this, on account of Earth going boom while they are up there.

In the Red Dwarf episode Quarantine, the quarantined crew members are sentenced to two hours WOO (With Out Oxygen). It actually implies the carbon dioxide problem; all that's said is that the air will 'become unbreathable'. Of course, this isn't a problem as they escape quickly enough.

In the Sanctuary episode "Requiem", Magnus is shown trapped in a room with computer monitors indicating both falling oxygen levels and lethally increasing amounts of carbon monoxide.

Stargate SG-1: When Teal'c and O'Neill are trapped in a hybrid Goa'uld-human Space Fighter stuck on autopilot, the main problem is finding a way to retrieve them before they run out of air. By the time the rest of the team reaches them (in a tel'tak shuttle), O'Neill is delirious from lack of oxygen (Teal'c is in a deep meditation in an attempt to conserve air).

The three part pilot for Stargate Universe is entitled "Air", after the first struggle they face on board the ship. There are major leaks spilling the air out into space which had to be fixed, one in a seemingly unreachable spot. Once they fix that, they find out the carbon dioxide scrubbers aren't working. D'oh.

In the episode "Shuttlepod One", Trip Tucker and Malcolm Reed find debris of what they wrongly assume to be the crashed starship Enterprise on an asteroid. Because of the limited oxygen supply and reach of the shuttlepod, they believe they're stranded in space and try to face their oncoming deaths in their own conflicting ways.

In the episode "Minefield" in which a Romulan mine attaches itself (and Reed) to the Enterprise, Reed becomes convinced that the bomb can't be disarmed in time so he detaches his air supply hose. However, Archer simply shares his air supply, tells him to knock off his attitude and keep walking him through disarming the bomb.

In Star Trek: Voyager's "Day of Honor", Tom and B'Elanna are adrift in spacesuits after their shuttle is destroyed. Turbulence soon punctures one oxygen tank, forcing them to share. By the dialogue, the other oxygen tank should have been enough to provide for both of them for a very long time, but it was also (albeit less critically) damaged by the same turbulence.

Paris: When we first met you didn't have a very high opinion of me.

Torres: That's putting it mildly. I thought you were an arrogant, self-absorbed pig.

In "City at the Edge of the World", Vila and Kerril are unexpectedly teleported to an automated spacecraft, where a recorded voice informs them they will remain alive only as long as the air that was teleported with them lasts. When they don't die as expected, Vila realises that air is filtering through the Forcefield Door from a habitable planet outside, as the spacecraft has reached its destination.

In "Headhunter", Orac puts Scorpio into Lock Down to prevent the Monster of the Week from escaping. It responds by shutting down life support, but fortunately the crew get into rescue suits in time. Avon then has to break quarantine to rescue them, as the suits have limited oxygen supply.

In "Assassin", our heroes seize the spaceship of a Professional Killer, who escapes and shuts off the life support remotely, forcing them to split up and search in the limited time they have left.

In "Warlord", Xenon Base is sabotaged; bombs destroy the teleport and all entrances, yet the ventilation is left intact to spread a lethal virus. So the people trapped inside have to shut down life support leaving them with air for around 20 hours, and it will take at least four days to dig themselves out.

In "Hostage", Travis locks our heroes in an airlock and starts to pump out the air. Vila wants to know how many minutes they have left before they die of oxygen deprivation. Avon's reply? "I'll let you know."

Wonder Woman: In "The Man Who Could Not Die", Diana Prince is tied up and trapped in her garage with the car left on in order to kill her. She escapes her bonds just in time to transform into Wonder Woman, she does the spinning...but passes out entirely mid-spin! Bryce Candle, the titular man who could not die, arrives in the nick of time!

Newspaper Comics

One Calvin and Hobbes Sunday strip featured a poem Calvin wrote about alien invaders who, rather than landing on Earth and conquering it, simply drained its oceans and atmosphere, while a crowd of people is seen shouting and gasping for breath.

The tube then sucked up the clouds and the air, Causing no small amount of Earthling despair. With nothing to breathe, we started to die. "Help us! Please stop!" was the public outcry.

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Pinball

The "Trunk Escape" from Theatre of Magic, which locks the magician in an underwater trunk, then gives players a limited air supply (time limit) to complete the illusion.

In The BBC's 1980s science fiction drama Earthsearch the four heroes have left their starship in a shuttle to explore another, apparently derelict, ship. On the way back they discover that a robot (planted by a defeated bad guy from an earlier episode) has taken control of their own ship and is flying it away. It turns out they have enough fuel to catch up... eventually, but only after their air has run out. As if that wasn't bad enough, said robot then sets out from their ship under its own power to finish them off anyway. Fortunately this provides the answer to both their problems - the crew discover that the villain had upgraded the shuttle with plasma cannons, and once they've destroyed the robot they realise they can turn the shuttle around and accelerate backwards using the plasma cannons' recoil.

In an earlier episode a computer controlling the environment in a lunar dome determined that the four humans were a threat and started pumping the air out. Luckily they managed to talk it out of it just in time.

Theatre

Aida: A lethal version occurs in the finale between Aida and Radames, set to the reprise of "Enchantment Passing Through."

Agent 5 has only ten minutes of oxygen to escape the Mars Maze in The Journeyman Project. The game gives you very Nightmare Fuel-inspired hints that you're running low; first the music slows down and fades out, then a loud heartbeat fades in, and finally adds in panicked, heavy breathing.

In Pikmin, when Captain Olimar crash-lands on a planet that totally isn't Earth, he has thirty days to repair his ship before he runs out of breathable air. Inverted in that in Olimar's case, oxygen is the poison that's going to kill him.

In Rock Raiders, most of the later caverns have a limited oxygen supply, and Sparks will continually warn: "Your air supply is running out!" until you build enough Support Stations to maintain the oxygen levels. The actual Almost Out of Oxygen point is when he starts saying, "Your air supply is running low." and you can hear a heartbeat over the background music.

In the X-Universe, if you eject from your ship with your Spacesuit, a O2 indicator will appear in your info. It tells you how many percents of oxygen you still have, and it takes about 2 hours to deplete it. And when it happens, you blow up.

In the plot of X3: Reunion, you end up in a damaged Spacesuit after your Goner transporter is destroyed by Yaki. The player has 90 seconds to reach the 3 km distant Truelight Seeker. As if it wasn't enough, you're inside of an Asteroid Thicket. Since the maximum speed of a suit is 12 m/s, the time is barely sufficent.

In Elite: Dangerous the player has a limited reserve of Oxygen (depending on their life support, anywhere from 5-25 minutes) that turns on when their ship's Canopy is breached. If you fail to enter a station's airlock before the timer runs out, your ship explodes. For added difficulty, a canopy breach renders a large portion of the Diegetic Interface - crosshair, ETA, target position, etc - invisible as the holograms have nothing to project against.

In FTL: Faster Than Light, both the player's ship and enemy ship have oxygen systems that maintain oxygen throughout the ship, and rooms that don't have oxygen in them will quickly drain the health of everyone in that room (with some minor exceptions). This trope comes into play when the player's oxygen system is damaged (or worse, breached) and the crew are otherwise distracted; running from the medbay to the oxygen system to patch up the room and restore functionality, all while the global ship supply drops below 10% capacity, can be harrowing.

Sunless Sea: The Zubmariner expansion has an oxygen meter whenever you've submerged, which can be refilled by resurfacing and finding vents in the zeefloor. It lowers slowly, so there's usually little risk of running out unless there's a fire on board or you're distracted, but if you get low on it you will have to resort to desperate measures to consume less, including ejecting wounded crewmen through the airlock.

The crew complain of headaches. The air is heavy and stultifying. Conversations slur.

In The Lydian Option, the Tha'Latta use venting the atmosphere as a method of quelling prison riots in their asteroid prison — killing all of the prisoners inside. The human prisoners are forced to seek an escape facing an imminent venting.

Western Animation

Futurama, "Love and Rocket": the Planet Express ship computer (which has developed a crush on Bender and gone completely insane) cuts off the oxygen supply, so Leela and Fry have to wear spacesuits while they try to switch it off. Fry notices that Leela's air tank is running low, so he sacrifices his own oxygen to keep her alive. He gets better.

The whole first season of FinalSpace features the main character, Gary, reflecting on the various events that occurred over the course of ten minutes while leaking oxygen from his spacesuit in each opening. Said events lead up to his and his crew's failure to save the planet Earth from the Titans' annihilation.

Real Life

The above-mentioned Apollo 13 is of course based on the story of the real mission.

The sinking of the Kursk. In a tragically ironic twist, it was the emergency oxygen generators reacting violently with water leaking into the sub that killed off the final survivors.

Hypoxia is a very real danger to people who operate at high altitude, such as mountain climbers and pilots. Though in this case it's not so much "running out" of oxygen as simply not getting enough of it from the atmosphere to begin with. One of the symptoms of hypoxia is a sense of euphoria, or a feeling of everything being a-ok. Hence, a piece of advice to novice pilots: If everything seems to be going well, check your oxygen.

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